Inevitable
by youdontneedtokn0w
Summary: A fic that uses the story-line of The Great Gatsby and applies it to the characters of frozen. The storyline does not follow The Great Gatsby entirely throughout. HansXAnna / KristoffXRapunzel / AnnaXElsa Please be mindful to the mature content that has yet to come. DISCLAIMER: F. Scott Fitzgerald owns the characters and plot of The Great Gatsby


"So do they miss me in Arendelle?" The redhead gingerly smiled, her bright green eyes, surrounded by a wave of long black eyelashes, flickering with excitement.

"Hell, there's practically a mourning parade every single day all over the kingdom. The servants of the castle still haven't hung dark drapes over your portrait, it would be unbearable to shield such a pretty face from the world." Anna made a face and crinkled her nose.

"I'm not dead," she objected, although her cousin's response had made her smile wider than she did when he walked in the room. "How beautiful," she then said, shifting her posture to improve her alignment. It was a nervous habit of hers when Hans made himself present in the room, which he had in the past moment. "Hans, we should go back, first thing tomorrow morning!"

The tall brunette only let out a sly chuckle as he poured a glass of wine from across the room as his low voice echoed against the small ceiling. The guest, who had been studying Tom's actions, suspected that Anna's last remark had been a comment of sarcasm, for she immediately changed the subject.

"Pardon, have you seen the baby?"

"No," the blonde recalled.

"Never?" Anna received another negative response.

"She's asleep, but later you should-" Before Anna could continue, Hans's hand firmly gripped the boy's shoulder.

"What brings you out here this fine afternoon?" The alcohol on his breath lingered the air and caused Kristoff to make the effort to restrain from sneezing.

"Just finally found the time to visit," the boy responded in a polite tone.

"What are ya doin' these days anyway?"

Kristoff had to blink hard to keep from rolling his eyes. "I sell ice for a living."

Hans took in a sharp inhale through his teeth, creating a sound that sounded like a snake. "Ooh, that's a tough business to be in. How unfortunate."

Although Hans's arrogant tone irritated Kristoff, he managed to laugh it off."Agreed."

"Definitely," another feminine voice added, as a friend of Anna's walked in the room, a certain strut to her walk. Her nose was held distinctively high in the air. Her name was Rapunzel, and her hair was short and choppy, but had a lovely brown shade. Her shoulders were square and pulled back, and her form was flawless. Although her features were lovely, even Kristoff wouldn't hesitate to admit that Anna sat at the top of the beauty pyramid. Anyone could instantly agree that she is stunning. But Rapunzel had a different kind of beauty, and it caught Kristoff's eye.

"You work for Arendelle," Rapunzel said, shooting her eyes in Kristoff's direction. "I know someone there."

"Just recently, I started to, yes. But I don't know anyone-"

"By now you must have met Queen Elsa," Rapunzel insisted, punching emphasis on "must." With that comment, Anna's head shot up instantly after she was done fiddling with the edges of her black and green dress.

"Queen Elsa? What Elsa?"

A silence filled the vacant room, but the fear, the emotion screaming in Anna's eyes overpowered the silence. Kristoff and Anna held an intense eye contact, the only movement in the room being the redheads chest rapidly rising and falling with every sharp inhale.

Before anyone could react or respond, the three were called to dinner, which was outside on a was fall, but today was warmer than most. The evening sun hung softly in the sky, casting a gentle glow through the curtains of the patio. Everything at Hans and Anna's castle was precise. Kristoff hadn't been used to eating with silverware, let alone at a beautiful dining table with a glass top and butlers surrounding him. Since Hans and Anna had become powerful rulers of the Southern Isles, and trading became very successful over the past few years, they became incredibly rich. Their castle was almost over the top ridiculous in Kristoff's opinion. They had rooms and seating and money to spare. Sometimes, Kristoff liked to humor himself, by estimating the time it would take to close all the windows to the castle, if they were all open before a thunderstorm. Kristoff himself had very little money, and only moved to Arendelle because he had found a small hut to live in, that once belonged to someone he worked with. They made an agreement that when Frederick, the man of whom he had worked with, fled to start his own business, Kristoff could take the hut. At Anna's, Kristoff felt uncomfortable and out of place. Throughout most of his life, he hadn't even had a home of his own. The only places he stayed were abandoned sheds for a place to sleep at night. But, for a few months in his newly rented hut, he had actually been living practically next to the Queen, though he had never met her.

At dinner, Anna and Rapunzel talked Kristoff's ears off about family and friends of theirs. Occasionally Hans would join in, attempting to change the subject, often saying the words "trade" or "Arendelle" or other times, bringing up his difficult family history. The one who disliked these topics the most was probably Anna, for she would scold him for bringing up political matters at the dinner table with a guest.

"Civilization's going to pieces," Hans interrupted, while Anna and Rapunzel had been going on about some other light topic. Kristoff was solely paying attention to the way Rapunzel's lips curled gradually into a smile when Anna said something exciting and passionate.

The queen of the Southern Isles sighed heavily. "Hans has been reading thick books cover to cover lately. They inspire him to attempt deep discussion more than frequently. He-"

"You just refuse to admit to our Kingdoms power over Arendelle," Hans glared at Anna, showing a mouthful of pork into his face. Anna only giggled in return.

"Right, which is why I sit next to you on the throne of this Kingdom, here and now." She glanced down at her own plate and shoved the food around with her fork, refusing to let anything on her plate touch. Meanwhile, Rapunzel hadn't even been holding any utensils. With her fist pressed to her chin and her elbow on the table, she watched Kristoff, who didn't notice her until he took an overly large bite of food. As Rapunzel spoke, he chewed furiously and swallowed as fast as he could.

"Do you want to hear about the butler's eyes?" She whispered, leaning in closer to the blonde, who looked at Rapunzel curiously. He figured she meant the one who he first saw while approaching the door to the patio. He was an older man, with light thinning hair. On his head he wore dark sunglasses, shielding his eyes.

"That's the very reason I came," Kristoff replied sarcastically with a smirk. He took a drink of white wine which he originally declined, but Anna had insisted.

"Well, he used to be the head chef here. He was hired very young; he was so eager to begin his career, and what a brave little boy he was, hired at just eighteen years," Rapunzel began, as Kristoff admired the sound, the beautiful sound of Rapunzel's voice. "There were fumes that were released when the kitchen caught on fire that permanently damaged his eyes."

Anna joined in. "The poor thing, the fire wasn't even his fault."

Just as Anna had began to spoke, a butler, (thank god it wasn't the one they and been speaking of) came outside and whispered something into Hans's ears. His eyes darkened slightly as he excused himself and walked through the carefully designed wooden doors into the castle. Rapunzel's expression was unreadable. She used a napkin to dab softly at her lips, while Anna just looked lost, her smile artificial. Kristoff felt very uncomfortable when they made eye contact.

"You should visit us more often Kristoff," she started off smiling. But within seconds, her face fell, and her green eyes were welling with tears. "It's been a pleasure."

She threw her napkin rather loudly on the table and was the second one to leave the dining table. Kristoff looked to Rapunzel, who picked at her nails, as if nothing was new or unusual.

"What was that?" Kristoff asked almost shouting, voice full of concern. The brunette glanced at him shocked.

"You mean you don't know?"

_I haven't been here in two years, of course not,_ Kristoff thought, but he simply answered "No."

"Hans has some girl who lives in the village," Rapunzel informed casually.

Kristoff raised his right eyebrow. "Got some girl," he repeated, spacing each word as he said them.

Rapunzel nodded. "Just a trashy little thing, desperate for attention, and maybe a few things more," she explained, making Kristoff blush. "She might have the decency not to visit during dinner hours, don't you think?" Within seconds, both Anna and Hans returned to the table, Daisy now smiling again.

"What a lovely evening. I saw a bird on the lawn, I think it was a nightingale. He was singing away-" Anna abruptly stopped, looking around and the beautiful lawn they had. The setting sun casted a gentle pink on everything visible. There was a slight breeze that created a rhythm of brown, dead leaves dancing across the stone patio, and down the stairs to the dock of the fjord, which was a long, long way down from the top of the hill Anna and Han's castle was placed.

"Isn't it romantic, Hans?" For the first time, Kristoff heard that Anna's voice sounded small.

"Very," Hans replied. And for the rest of the meal, no one looked each other directly in the eyes.

Eventually, Hans and Rapunzel had slipped back inside, headed for the library, but Anna didn't follow. Instead, she walked a chain of paths to a garden, rather close to the water. Kristoff followed, for he was concerned about his cousin. Within the silent moments at the end of dinner, he put together that this new act of hers, a show of artificial happiness was because of Hans's so-called "girl." The two sat down a bench, Kristoff paying close attention to Anna- her movement, her eyes, her words. They sat outside in crisp air, growing more and more frigid by the minute, due to the dropping sun.

"We don't know each other very well," Anna said abruptly. The blonde was slightly taken aback by the comment. "You never went to my wedding."

_What wedding? Is this a marriage? _

"I was away," Kristoff reminded her, lightly smiling.

"True. I've been pretty cynical about everything." This was probably the most concerning thing Anna had said all night. Kristoff would have never expected Anna to use a word like cynical, one reason being it's far out of range for her vocabulary understanding, another reason being using it to explain herself.

Apprehensive about what that comment would lead to, Kristoff impulsively brought up her daughter.

"Well you know, she talks and… eats. And everything," Anna stuttered. Kristoff lightly chuckled. This was more like the Anna he knew. "Kristoff, do you want to know what I said when she was born? Would you like to hear?"

"Of course."

Without a pause, Anna continued. "She was less than an hour old, and Hans was… well, God knows where. But I was worried, and I felt abandoned. So I asked the nurse beside me if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and I started crying. I cried," the words, spoken by Anna's sweet voice started to break.

"And then I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'"

* * *

When Anna and Kristoff decided it was too cold to remain outdoors, they returned inside. Rapunzel and Hans had remained in the library, each of their noses stuck in a book. Rapunzel glanced to a clock hanging on the wall across from her.

"Ten o'clock. Time for me to go to bed. Wake me at eight, would you?" Kristoff watched Rapunzel stand up, and stretch her arms towards the ceiling after setting her book on the sofa.

"If you'll wake up," Hans replied, a sly grin on his face.

"Of course she will. In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over more often Kristoff, I will fling you together. I'll 'accidentally' lock you up in closets and-"

"Good night," Rapunzel said, climbing the stairs, as Kristoff's cheeks reddened. "I haven't heard anything," her voice purred as she looked directly at Kristoff, making his heart stop. Then she was gone.

A few seconds of silenced passed again, as Kristoff remained standing while Anna had seated herself on a chair near the fireplace as she played with her braided hair. The glow from the fire made her hair look even more so red than it already was.

"Aren't you engaged anyway?" Hans questioned suddenly, looking at me for the first time in a few hours.

"Oh yeah," Anna joined in. "I heard from a few different people that you have a girl now!" The term "have a girl" had grown into a phrase that made Kristoff cringe within one evening. There was no commitment attached to it, no love.

"I don't know why or where you would have heard that, because I don't 'have a girl,' I'm too poor," Kristoff said sourly.

"But we heard it from three different people, so it must be true!" Anna insisted, calling to Kristoff who headed out the nearest door possible, confused, offended, and disgusted.

* * *

It took almost an hour for Kristoff to row back to Arendelle, his mind swirling with too many subjects to handle. Rapunzel, Hans's affair with an anonymous girl, the child Anna and Hans had that they paid no mind to, and most concerning, Anna's reaction to Queen Elsa. As much as he hated it, Kristoff's mind always focused back on Rapunzel when he tried to think about any other matter of the night. Something about her struck him, and made him freeze down to the bone. But rowing back to Arendelle caused him to grow even more cold, for it was fall, but Arendelle was cursed with receiving an early winter, due to where it was located geographically. With every stroke of a paddle, the temperature dropped a degree, causing Kristoff to shiver violently.

When he returned back to the Kingdom he worked for, he docked his paddle boat quickly to a post on a small dock that was reserved to him. He began to walk up the dock to his hut, when he saw a dark figure standing on the dock in the distance. He wondered who it would be this late at night, but he made no call to the person standing away from him. One last time, Kristoff squinted to try and make out who the person could be, but he gave up, knowing he wouldn't make an effort to talk to them anyway. So he slipped into the darkness returning to his hut, remaining to think of the unpleasant evening he had just shared in the Southern Isles, the opposing country that Arendelle knew.

The streets were vacant in Arendelle, besides the thin layer of fresh snow that lied easily on top of the stone. An occasional taper was visible from lonely window of a humble hut. The water of the fjord remained calm, and a heavy and frigid, damp air covered the kingdom like a blanket. Often times, at this hour in the night, the northern lights would dance among the stars with exciting movement, but tonight, the sky was not awake, therefore no one was awake. All that was visible was an absent view of the unknown world beyond what was known from the Earth. All in the kingdom were sleeping in the kingdom but one- the queen who ruled it.

More than frequently, the blonde found herself in the exact spot she was standing in tonight. Her toes were right up to the edge of the longest dock of the fjord, her arms were crossed tightly over her stomach. In the distance was the mountain. The tall, majestic mountain the queen longed for. She couldn't help but stare at the beauty of it, or of the castle that sat upon it. The beautiful stone castle that belonged to the Southern Isles. The castle that people were beginning to think was more powerful than her own. The castle she reached for. The mocking sight caused her hands to unfold and rise into the air, as she couldn't fight the burning desire anymore.

_She hasn't gone anywhere. She is practically right here with you, right now. So close. _

Almost at an instant, the curious blonde fired a beam of ice from her palms at the sky over the mountain, causing the sky to shimmer with vibrant shades of blue and white, casting a soft glow of light onto the castle of the Southern Isles. Although light had been flickering over the sky, instead, clouds surrounded the mountain and kingdom opposite of the queen's. The black clouds swirled in an angry frenzy, and thunder accompanied the raging dance of the sky. After a few brief moment, the dark grays turned into light grays, and the clouds calmed, as did the creator's heartbeat when she was able to see snowflakes falling over the Southern Isles.

The Southern Isles hadn't received snow yet this season. The storms came in from the west, and always briefly missed the tall mountain. Some wouldn't complain about the fact of having an easy winter, with no harsh conditions. But, the queen knew of one who loved the winter more than she did herself.

The snowflakes continued to fall, as blue eyes scanned over the castle with anticipation, as the queen licked her pale lips. Within seconds, the bedroom light was flickered on. The window at the top of the stone castle on the mountain glowed with a soft, pale orange, and a dark figure appeared from behind it. The light, gentle yet bright, pierced even through the steam rising from the water, creating a reflection that stretched toward the queen standing on the edge of the dock.

Queen Elsa extended her hand toward this light, toward her light.

_Anna. _

For a second, Elsa smiled, and stifled through choppy exhales until she controlled her heartbeat again. That is, until the light vanished, and there was no more soft reflection of orange on the water. No light at all was known to Elsa anymore. She was left only with the sight of snowflakes falling rapidly in the distance.

The queen imagined what it would be like to see how Anna reacted to the weather. To watch her small pink lips stretch into a smile, and to hear her high pitched laugh again. She wondered what she was wearing right now, how she had been and what she had done lately. What she was planning for the holiday. How she was doing with Hans, her new muse.

Most importantly, Elsa imagined Anna's hand reaching out for hers, just as she had done when they were separated in their younger years. When Anna loved Elsa unconditionally, she always vowed to be there for her. The pain and confusion of why that changed ate at Elsa every minute of every lonely day.

Someday it was going to change. _Someday, she was going to have her love back._


End file.
